


No, you take it

by Karis_Artemisia_Judith



Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 07:32:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2804537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karis_Artemisia_Judith/pseuds/Karis_Artemisia_Judith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the night before Thanksgiving, Anna needs eggs for her very important pie, and there's one carton left at the store--but she isn't the only one who wants it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No, you take it

Anna groaned. The shelves of the little corner grocery store had been picked clean by the rush of pre-Thanksgiving shoppers—shoppers who  _hadn’t_  been called into work that morning by a panicked manager who’d had two baristas call in with mysterious and dire illnesses. Shoppers who hadn’t worked a double shift, who probably hadn’t spilled hot coffee on themselves, who were no doubt at home right now, relaxing in front of their TVs, their super-special chocolate custard pies already chilling and ready for tomorrow.

Okay, probably not, because chocolate custard wasn’t the most traditional Thanksgiving pie ever. But it was the one pie that Anna knew how to make, and it she’d gotten the recipe from her mother, and it was her  _favorite_ , so it was what she made every year. Elsa took care of everything else—although not by cooking. After their first few disastrous years, the turkey was catered, the stuffing came from a mix, and Elsa always made cold broccoli and bacon salad. And Anna always made chocolate pie.

Except that this year her pie was in serious jeopardy.

Anna loved people, she really did—it made her great at her job, and most of the time it made it easy for her to be forgiving of life’s little inconveniences. Just at the moment, however, she found herself hating every single person who had decided that they needed frozen pie crust and chocolate bars and heavy cream more than she did. It was late, she was tired, and she didn’t have a car, so there was no way for her to get to a bigger grocery store tonight. She snagged the last carton of cream, and picked up a pile of regular chocolate bars to stand in for the big bar she usually got. After a second she added another bar for herself. And another one, because it was good to have extra. If she made pie crust from scratch, the pie could still happen…

Brightening, Anna reached for a carton of eggs, just as a big, calloused hand closed on it from the other side.

"Hey!" She scowled and her eyes followed the line of a muscular arm, up to a broad chest, and up still more to a rugged, familiar face. "Oh," Anna said weakly. She knew that strong nose and shaggy blond hair—she saw it every morning on her way to work. They waited for the same bus, and Anna wasn’t a morning person by any means, especially not before she got to work and had her first coffee, but even in her sluggish half-asleep morning zombie-mode the sight of his handsome build and his smile never failed to perk her up. He’d never talked to her—it had taken a month before he’d smiled at her—but she’d spent hours entertaining herself by inventing stories about his mysterious past. She didn’t have many details to work with.  What was his job? Did he work with his hands? He sometimes had dog hair on his clothes, was it his dog? A girlfriend’s dog? What kind of dog? Anna had pictured him with an elegantly groomed poodle and nearly snorted iced coffee up her nose once. And now the tragically orphaned, wood-carving, mountain-climbing, kindergarten-teaching dog-whisperer/lumberjack/fireman of her dreams was trying to steal her eggs.

"Um, hi," Anna said. She didn’t let go of the eggs. He didn’t let go either.

"Hello."

They stared at each other.

"I kind of need these eggs," Anna said. "I need them for pie."

"I need them if I want to be allowed back in the house tonight," he said. His voice was warm and deep and Anna wanted to roll up in it like a blanket. But she also wanted eggs. And, for that matter, an explanation.

"Why aren’t you allowed back in the house without eggs?" she demanded.

He sighed. “Look, I wasn’t thinking, and this morning I omelets and I used up all the eggs, and my ma was  _not_  happy, and if I don’t come home with eggs then I am in serious trouble.”

"If I don’t make this pie, then Thanksgiving will be ruined."

"How many eggs does it take to make a pie?"

"A lot! It’s a custard pie. And I always break at least two."

"Geez. Why is this pie so important?"

"It’s  _chocolate_.” Anna blushed as he stared at her, one eyebrow raised. “Look, I just—it’s special. Well, I think it’s special. It reminds me of my mom, and…well…” she trailed off. “Well, really I guess it’s just me, and my sister, and she only eats like one piece, and I end up eating the whole pie, so really it’s only special to me. It’s my special pie that no one else cares about.” She bit her lip, shoulders sagging. “Sorry, never mind. I just…you’re right, it’s not important. You take the eggs.” She pulled her hand away, and he immediately held the eggs back out to her.

"No, that sounds important. Really. I was rude, sorry. Ma would smack me. You take them."

Anna pushed them back toward him. “No, no, I don’t need them, it’s okay.”

"No, really, I think you should make your pie. It matters to you. You take the eggs."

"It’s okay, I don’t—"

"Just take them, I can—"

As they both tried to push the eggs into the hands of the other person there was a terrible crunch, and the carton between them exploded. Bits of egg and shell splashed both of them, and the torn package let the remaining eggs rain down to smash at their feet, coating their shoes and forming a puddle of yellow carnage.

Anna stared in horror from the mess on the floor to the crumpled egg carton to the shocked face above her. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Oh, god, I’m  _so_  sorry, I’m so, so sorry, oh my gosh, I didn’t…and you were trying to be nice and I didn’t—oh geez, it’s  _everywhere_.” She wiped helplessly at his coat, only succeeding in spreading the egg around. “Oh no.”

He started to laugh. It was a really gorgeous laugh, the kind of laugh that Anna felt resonate all through her body and down to her toes, and at any other moment she would have been in love with it, but just now it made her want to cringe down and vanish into nothing. He noticed her face and sobered.

"I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—please don’t feel bad, it’s okay. It was an accident."

"I’m sorry," Anna mumbled. One of the two store employees had come to see what was going on. Anna blushed even more. "Sorry," Anna repeated, "I’m really sorry, I’ll pay—" as he sighed and went towards the backroom. He came back a second later and began to slowly and resentfully mop up the eggs.

Anna and the blond stranger both stepped back as the mop brushed over their shoes.

"Um," Anna said. "I’m sorry. I—do you want to get cleaned up? I live just a couple of buildings down, and…I’m  _really_  sorry.”

"It’s okay. Really. But are you really inviting someone you just met back to your place?"

"Well, yeah. But I don’t do that with just anybody." She grinned faintly. "Only people I’ve covered with eggs. Besides, my sister is there,  _and_  we have a killer bunny rabbit, so it’s not like I’m offering to go with you into a dark warehouse or something.”

He wiped his hand on his pants and held it out. “Well we should at least be introduced first. I’m Kristoff.”

"Anna." Her hand looked very small in his, but his grip was warm and gentle.

"Nice to meet you, Anna. Look, tell you what. Let me clean up at your place, and I’ll go get you some eggs for your pie, okay? I can drive across town to that twenty-four hour store, they probably still have some."

Anna blinked. “Wait, you have a car?”

"Well, it’s a truck, but yeah, I got it a month ago."

"So is there no parking where you work?"

"Wait, what? No, of course there’s parking."

"Then why do you ride the bus every day, if you have a truck?"

"Because…" He blushed a dark pink and rubbed at the back of his head awkwardly, looking away from her. "I just…ah….I like…buses."

Anna’s eyebrows went up. “Really.”

"Yeah."

"You like waiting in the cold, and the rain, and then having your face in someone’s armpit for thirty minutes? Well, I guess you’re probably the person with someone else in  _your_ armpit, but still. You’ve got to be kidding.”

He muttered something, blush darkening.

"What?"

Kristoff sighed and shrugged. “I took the bus…because seeing you every day was the best part of my morning. I kept trying to work up the nerve to talk to you, but—” He broke off when Anna bobbed up on her toes to press her lips to his cheek.

"Seeing you is the best part of my morning, too," she said. She’d gripped the front of his shirt for balance, and she didn’t let go. Kristoff touched his cheek, a grin spreading across his face. "Do you…after we go get eggs, do you wanna learn to make a pie?" she asked. 


End file.
